The Caretaker

of Octobers

(for Peggie)

Her lamp-filled house 

can make you cry

as easily as trees

lose their leaves.

Here in her heart’s museum

where everything she loves

has a place graced by light.

Only our dreams are

as vivid as her memories,

while our love 

must live at night,

content with tatters.

By contrast,

we live facing backward

surrendered 

in a compartment 

on a train hurtling 

toward the end 

of the line.

By virtue of being 

borne in this car

we persist by rushing 

toward 

what is behind us

through mercurial landscapes 

with no room for who we were.

Holding onto furniture

in the dark is how

her mind has kept its place.

Our dreamscape scenery 

makes its own

sense of beauty.

Her desire to keep

everything that touches her

is how our passing

will bring no emptiness

we’ve not already allowed.

Lately, every hour

gathers

our habitual stories

like belongings for disposal.

The ones that placed

us at the center

seem already out of reach. 

Whereas

her last desire

is a caretaker’s desire:

to be here and now

and at the same time

in love

with going away.

Peter Valentyne

October 2018